Дэшил Хэммет: Woman in the Dark

He wagged his head up and down, grinning.

“I haven’t got my money’s worth out of you yet.” He took a step toward her.

She retreated to the table, caught up the whiskey bottle by its neck. “Do not touch me!” Her voice, like her face, was cold with fury.

The dog rose, growling.

Robson’s dark eyes jerked sidewise to focus on the dog, then on Conroy — and one eyelid twitched — then on the woman again.

Conroy — with neither tenseness nor furtiveness to alarm woman or dog-put his right hand into his overcoat pocket, brought out a black pistol, put its muzzle close behind one of the dog’s ears, and shot the dog through the head. The dog tried to leap, fell on its side; its legs stirred feebly. Conroy, smiling foolishly, returned the pistol to his pocket.

Luise Fischer spun around at the sound of the shot. Screaming at Conroy, she raised the bottle to hurl it. But Robson caught her wrist with one hand, wrenched the bottle away with the other. He was grinning, saying, “No, no, my sweet,” in a bantering voice.

He put the bottle on the table again, but kept his grip on her wrist.

The dog’s legs stopped moving.

Robson said: “All right. Now, are you ready to go?” She made no attempt to free her wrist. She drew herself up straight and said very seriously: “My friend, you do not know me yet if you think I am going with you.”

Robson chuckled. “You don’t know me if you think you’re not,” he told her.

The front door opened and Brazil came in. His sallow face was phlegmatic, though there was a shade of annoyance in his eyes. He shut the door carefully behind him, then addressed his guests. His voice was that of one who complains without anger. “What the hell is this?” he asked. “Visitors’ day? Am I supposed to be running a roadhouse?”

Robson said: “We are going now. Fräulein Fischer’s going with us.”

Brazil was looking at the dead dog, annoyance deepening in his copperish eyes. “That’s all right if she wants to,” he said indifferently.

The woman said: “I am not going.”

Brazil was still looking at the dog. “That’s all right too,” he muttered, and with more interest: “But who did this?” He walked over to the dog and prodded its head with his foot. “Blood all over the floor,” he grumbled.

Then, without raising his head, without the slightest shifting of balance or stiffening of his body, he drove his right fist up into Conroy’s handsome, drunken face.

Conroy fell away from the fist rigidly, with upbent knees, turning a little as he fell. His head and one shoulder struck the stone fireplace, and he tumbled forward, rolling completely over, face upward, on the floor.

Brazil whirled to face Robson.

Robson had dropped the woman’s wrist and was trying to get a pistol out of his overcoat pocket. But she had flung herself on his arm, hugging it to her body, hanging with her full weight on it, and he could not free it, though he tore her hair with his other hand.

Brazil went around behind Robson, struck his chin up with a fist so he could slide his forearm under it across the taller man’s throat. When he had tightened the forearm there and had his other hand wrapped around Robson’s wrist, he said: “All right. I’ve got him.”

Luise Fischer released the man’s arm and fell back on her haunches. Except for the triumph in it, her face was as businesslike as Brazil’s.

Brazil pulled Robson’s arm up sharply behind his back. The pistol came up with it, and when the pistol was horizontal Robson pulled the trigger. The bullet went between his back and Brazil’s chest, to splinter the corner of a bookcase in the far end of the room.

Brazil said: “Try that again, baby, and I’ll break your arms. Drop it!”

Robson hesitated, let the pistol clatter down on the floor. Luise Fischer scrambled forward on hands and knees to pick it up. She sat on a corner of the table, holding the pistol in her hand.

Brazil pushed Robson away from him and crossed the room to kneel beside the man on the floor, feeling his pulse, running hands over his body, and rising with Conroy’s pistol, which he thrust into a hip pocket.

Conroy moved one leg, his eyelids fluttered sleepily, and he groaned.

Brazil jerked a thumb at him and addressed Robson curtly: “Take him and get out.”

Robson went over to Conroy, stooped to lift his head and shoulders a little, shook him, and said irritably: “Come on, Dick, wake up. We’re going.”

Conroy mumbled, “I’m a’ ri’,” and tried to lie down again.

“Get up, get up,” Robson snarled, and slapped his cheeks.

Conroy shook his head and mumbled: “Do’ wan’a.”

Robson slapped the blond face again. “Come on, get up, you louse.”

Conroy groaned and mumbled something unintelligible.

Brazil said impatiently: “Get him out anyway. The rain’ll bring him around.”

Robson started to speak, changed his mind, picked up his hat from the floor, put it on, and bent over the blond man again. He pulled him up into something approaching a sitting position, drew one limp arm over his shoulder, got a hand around Conroy’s back and under his armpit, and rose, slowly lifting the other on unsteady legs beside him.

Brazil held the front door open. Half dragging, half carrying Conroy, Robson went out.

Brazil shut the door, leaned his back against it, and shook his head in mock resignation.

Luise Fischer put Robson’s pistol down on the table and stood up. “I am sorry,” she said gravely. “I did not mean to bring to you all this—”

He interrupted her carelessly: “That’s all right.” There was some bitterness in his grin, though his tone remained careless. “I go on like this all the time. God! I need a drink.”

She turned swiftly to the table and began to fill glasses.

He looked her up and down reflectively, sipped, and asked: “You walked out just like that?”

She looked down at her clothes and nodded yes.

He seemed amused. “What are you going to do?”

“When I go to the city? I shall sell these things” — she moved her hands to indicate her rings — “and then — I do not know.”

“You mean you haven’t any money at all?” he demanded.

“That is it,” she replied coolly.

“Not even enough for your ticket?”

She shook her head no, raised her eyebrows a little, and her calmness was almost insolence. “Surely that is a small amount you can afford to lend me.”

“Sure,” he said, and laughed. “But you’re a pip.”

She did not seem to understand him.

He drank again, then leaned forward. “Listen, you’re going to look funny riding the train like that.” He flicked two fingers at her gown. “Suppose I drive you in and I’ve got some friends that’ll put you up till you get hold of some clothes you can go out in?”

She studied his face carefully before replying: “If it is not too much trouble for you.”

“That’s settled, then,” he said. “Want to catch a nap first?”

He emptied his glass and went to the front door, where he made a pretense of looking out at the night.

As he turned from the door he caught her expression, though she hastily put the frown off her face. His smile, voice were mockingly apologetic: “I can’t help it. They had me away for a while — in prison, I mean — and it did that to me. I’ve got to keep making sure I’m not locked in.” His smile became more twisted. “There’s a name for it — claustrophobia — and that doesn’t make it any better.”

“I am sorry,” she said. “Was it — very long ago?”

“Plenty long ago when I went in,” he said dryly, “but only a few weeks ago that I got out. That’s what I came up here for — to try to get myself straightened out, see how I stood, what I wanted to do.”